But France, Germany, Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic were the only five EU countries to plant any gene-altered crops. Only in Spain were biotech varieties grown on more than 50,000 hectares.

Romania, currently scheduled to join the EU next year, notched up 120,000 hectares.

ISAAA chair Clive James said he was "cautiously optimistic" Europe would warm to GM cultivation, "but progress will be slow".

The US again showed most enthusiasm for GMs, planting almost 60 million hectares in 2005.

Overall, however, growth was significantly down from 2004, which saw a 20% international increase in GM take-up.

James played down the significance of the drop, saying he was confident GM popularity would rise still further in developing countries during the next decade.

No GMs have been approved for growing in Europe since 1998. The European Commission will however on Friday (13 January) approve a hybrid maize known as MON 863 x MON 810 for processing in the EU, after environment ministers last December failed to reach agreement for or against approval.

On Tuesday (10 January) the Commission also ordered Greece to lift its self-imposed ban on growing EU-approved maize MON 810.

The EU is currently caught up in a legal dispute with the US over allegations that it is blocking GM development in Europe. The World Trade Organization last week (5 January) announced that it was delaying its interim ruling on the case for the third time, and is now unlikely to publish anything until late February.

Green group Friends of the Earth Europe published a report timed to coincide with the ISAAA statistics claiming that industry "hype" hid the dark GM truth.

Adrian Bebb from Friends of the Earth said: "Our report shows that in the ten years since genetically modified crops were introduced we have seen crops fail in developing countries leaving poor farmers destitute, we've seen an increase in the use of pesticides and we've seen a small number of very big corporations buy up the world's seed supply."